Ancient history

• John F. Ohmer, the David Copperfield of World War II

  Following the Imperial Japanese Navy attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor On December 7, 1941, another event occurred that spread panic throughout the American West Coast. On February 23, 1942 the submarine I-17 of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which had participated in the attack on Pearl H

• Cargo, an American god from heaven

  The New Hebrides Vanuatu, the name given to the archipelago of the Vanuatu islands in the South Pacific during colonial times, were colonized by Europeans in the 18th century, but it was not until 1880 that France and the United Kingdom claimed regions of the archipelago. To solve that conflict, in

• The road of blood crossed Sweden during World War II

  Although Sweden, in theory, remained neutral in World War II The point is that the German war industry depended on iron ore mined in Sweden. During the summer, there were no problems shipping the ore at the Swedish port of Lulea, but in winter the waters of the Gulf of Bothnia froze and much of the

• The First World War, a family war

  Marriage between individuals with common ancestry has been a constant throughout history in European monarchies. Endogamous marriages, for reasons of state, were used to seal political alliances or economic strategies that, over time, resulted in descendants with physical and mental defects and even

• Letter from a Jew to the French government in World War II

  In 1940, and after the battle of France, the Germans and the French signed an armistice on June 22, 1940 by which France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north and west, a small Italian occupation zone in the southeast , and an unoccupied zone, the free zone , In the south. This free

• Andorra remained for 25 years in a state of war against Germany

  The First World War It took place between July 28, 1914 and November 11, 1918. It involved all the great powers of the world that lined up on two opposing sides:on the one hand, the Allies of the Triple Entente, and, on the other, the Central Powers of the Triple Alliance. They declared war on each

• The replica of Paris built as a bombing decoy

  Although during the First World War the aerial bombardments hardly had importance in the development of the conflict, the bombardments of London by the Zeppelins could be reviewed Germans, in Paris they must have thought that it was better to be cured in health. Faced with the possibility of future

• While their families were imprisoned, the US Japanese regiment was the most decorated

  Following the attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the United States Navys Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the subsequent US declaration of war against Japan, the government of Franklin D. Roosevelt decreed the transfer and internment of Japanese residents in the US – inclu

• The crossword puzzle that almost broke the Normandy landings

  From the beginning of 1943 the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill , and the US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt They met to plan the invasion of the continent, then occupied by the Germans. But it was not until 1944 that the right circumstances arose:the Germans had lost Africa and the allies

• Hitler's Revenge Wagon

  The armistice between the Allies and Germany ended the fighting in World War I. The signing of the armistice took place at 5 am on November 11, 1918 in a wagon located on a siding in the forest of Compiègne (Rethondes, France) between the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces , the Frenchman Ferdi

• The soccer game of death, when the victory was paid with one's own life.

  I guess many of you will remember the movie Escape or Victory (1981) in which the German soccer team faced a team made up of prisoners of war during World War II and in which the dilemma of taking advantage of the match for a massive escape or defeating the Germans on the field was raised game, beca

• The bombs lost in Belgium during the First World War

  On June 7, 1917, the British 2nd Army, under the command of English Field Marshal Herbert Plumer , began an offensive on the Western Front during the First World War, with the purpose of taking a small mountain range, as a natural fortress, between the Belgian towns of Messines and Ypres... the Batt

• The Nobel Prize Medals the Nazis Couldn't Find

  The Germans Max von Laue and James Franck they received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1914 and 1925 respectively. Von Laue was a recognized opponent of Nazism and Franck was Jewish; so, faced with the possibility that the gold medals of the Nobel prize could reach the hands of the Nazis, they were

• How important was the mathematician Doodson in the Normandy landings?

  The Normandy landings (June 6, 1944) marked the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. Hitler was always clear that there would be an Allied landing on the French Atlantic coast, specifically in the area of ​​the English Channel. Just as they d

• The most humiliating victory for the Marines.

  I know that the title of this post may seem like a mistake – victory and humiliating – but… Kiska It is an island of the Rat Islands that are part of the Aleutian archipelago. In 1867 the United States acquired mainland Alaska and its western archipelagos from the Russian Empire, including Kiska Is

• Aspirin, the great asset of German espionage

  During the first years of World War I, the United States remained neutral. And although he always sympathized with the Allied cause, that was not his war and, furthermore, he did not see his interests in danger. Public opinion was divided until in May 1915 a German submarine sank the English ocean l

• The prisoner who was traded for 600,000 cigarettes.

  We are used to the protagonists of war stories being heroes who sacrificed their lives, brilliant strategists, unscrupulous wretches... but in this story the protagonists were because of their chivalry. One of them, Colonel Hans von Luck , he even said «we made a ruthless but decent war «. Hans von

• Stalin's army of invincible soldiers

  The hoplites, the Roman legions, the Tercios, the janissaries... have been considered the best warriors/soldiers throughout history. Later, science fiction has tried to create the invincible army:sophisticated weapons, robot soldiers, genetic modifications... and the humancé (hybrid between human an

• The octogenarian who defeated a battalion of Germans

  Matvey Kuzmin , which everyone called «Biriuk (Lone Wolf), was an 83-year-old man who lived in a wooden cabin in the woods surrounding his hometown, Kurakino (Russia). In 1942, away from the madding crowd and in the midst of the Nazi offensive on Russia, his only concerns were hunting, fishing, coll

• The «comfort women», sexual slaves in the Second World War

  During World War II, the Japanese established military brothels in the countries they occupied. Thousands of women from Korea, China, the Philippines... were forced to provide sexual services to the soldiers of the Japanese imperial army. They were called «comfort women » (comfort women ). Young wom